Month: March 2014

Cory and I had plans to take $50 each from our pay and go grocery shopping and go to Gateway Market to get some meats. We ended up spending $320. $80 of his money and $240 of mine. So umm… yeah… we came home with a shit load of groceries. We ended up spending his $80 at Gateway, $20 something at Shoppers Drug Mart, $60 at Giant Tiger and then another $160 at Walmart! Almost all on food. We are stocked up good though. No running out for at least 2 months (with the exception of some perishables).

I still somehow have $250 left in my bank account and every single bill is paid up. I ended up getting $400 back from my income taxes, why it was $130 more then what it said when we e-filed it I am not sure. But my Mom said not to worry. They never give back too much. She figures that as I was considered “low-income” last year that there was some tax benefit that I was entitled to that she missed. I still have a GST check coming on Friday which is another $160 which is going right into my savings account!

My goal is by the end of the summer to have a full month of all bills set aside in case we ever have a really bad month and need extra money, by the end of the year maybe 2 months. On top of that I want to start putting money in my tax free savings account for a down payment on a car or something. My car has a few years left in it but I still want to start saving. Things are coming together quite nicely for my end of it. Now we just have to work on Cory’s stuff.

I’m going to start with the not-so-good news so that this posts ends on a high note. I have a wicked cold. Cory has had it for about a week and a half and it turned into pneumonia again for him. I am hoping that it will not get that bad for me. I had a flu shot, which I know has nothing to do with a cold but for some reason when I get one I tend to get sick less overall through the winter. So here’s hoping…

Because of said cold, I called in to work sick today at about 10 this morning. I got a call about 11 from my project manager asking me if I felt well enough to come in for a few hours, I wouldn’t have to be on the phones or anything, she just wanted to discuss an opportunity with me that will help develop my “leadership” role as she put it and that they were having a meeting about it with our head office and wanted me to be there.

So I loaded up on cold medication and went in. I am glad I did. Even though I did not get the position I had applied for I was chosen, along with the person that did get that position to help head up a special project that our team is taking on. The two of us will be “go-betweens” between the higher ups in the head office and between our new agents that we are hiring to work on this special project. The agents were all hired for this project which they are thinking would be about 6 months long or so, though our project manager seemed to think that they may be wrong on that and that it might be 9 months or so based on the fact they are thinking that this will coincide with the upcoming school year.

Either way it means I get to actually work in a more hands on role in a leadership type role for other agents, along with the other person who was selected. I am just thinking myself that since she was just put into the other position that was open that it might fall more to me then her, though at this point she seems to have a little better idea of what is going on then I do. I am really hopeful that I might get to kinda of take the lead here. But again, either way it is still good for me.

I am hoping this will help with cementing myself further into a more permanent leadership type roll down the road a bit.

Oh yeah and know all the snow we got Wednesday? It totaled about 56 cm (22 inches) over about 6 hours – that’s on average 9 cm an hour! And 207 km/hour (almost 129 mph) was the maximum wind gusts recorded and with over 100 km/hour (62 mph) sustained winds. We have a few 12 – 16 ft snow banks at work and some of the other snow banks around are over 7 – 10 ft high – those are natural banks, ones made as the snow blew around. One apartment building on the street next to me lost it’s roof and a lighthouse was destroyed in Church Point, NS. It literally blew over. Imagine a category 5 or 6 hurricane and add snow! Crazy. And to top it all off, it is going to be plus 12 tomorrow! So its all gonna melt!

Oh and I am getting almost $300 back in taxes. Which is way better then having to pay in! Combine that with everything else and next week is looking good

The video above was from a community in Cape Breton but that is what it was like earlier in Halifax and anywhere in the whole province, since the storm is like 4 times the size of the province, no one in the Maritimes is escaping. You would litterally get blown down the street and the snow stings bare skin so bad… Zero visability. We are only half through, we have another 15-20 cm of snow forcast for the next few hours and into the night! And winds of 100 km/hour or more. Its a big fucking mess out there!

I called in to work to say I wasn’t coming in. Cory has pneumonia again and my mobility is not the best right now. So there was no way I was gonna drag him out… not that it ended up mattering much. Cory had an appointment at the rehabilitation center with his neurologist at 3 this afternoon, we called in to let them know he wasn’t going to make it, and they told him it would be 4-6 months before he can get in again.

I was so pissed! So we decided to go out in the worst blizzard we have had in over 10 years to drive him to his appointment. He drives, but I’m a bit more confident in my blizzard driving then his. They did let him come in early, the hope was to beat the worst of the storm… the result was to be out right in the middle of the worst of the first part of it. He is not getting paid again till she fills out his paperwork so yeah, we cant afford to live of my income alone for 3-4 months…

The good thing about making it to his appointment is that she agrees he needs to go on permanent disability. Its a bit of a shock but and the same time its not. So he has to get more paperwork from his work. I feel kinda like we should both be in our 70’s not 34. Its a hard realization. So is the fact that most of our hopes and dreams are slipping further and further away.

Anyways I stayed in the car while he went to his appointment since there was no where on the street to really park, not unless we want a hefty fine. I sat in front of the building at a parking meter with my hazards on. I could not see the front of my car out my front window. We made it home only to get stuck in the street in front of our appartment building in snow up to my waist. I didn’t need my crutches the snow was so deep it held me upright. I’m not kidding. The drifts from the plows where so high someone in a truck or mini-van could not even see or be seen over them.

For about 2 hours from about 3:30 – 5:30 the wind died down but it continued to snow. We looked up the satellite images and we seemed to be in the “eye” almost like a hurricane, and yes we get those here as well. We dont escape much of anything. Now its picked back up and I can’t see the building beside us out our bedroom window. Lets put it this way… if I stuck my arm out my bedroom window and our neighbours in the building beside us did the same we could touch fingers… but I can’t even make out the lights in their windows!

Its gonna be a long night. I would say thank god we still have power but that would be jinxing myself wouldn’t it?